


Boys Do What They Can

by triggerswaggiehavoc



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bad Flirting, Humor, M/M, Mild Language, at least attempted, side junhoon because i'm the author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 10:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8158519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggerswaggiehavoc/pseuds/triggerswaggiehavoc
Summary: Moving out of your hometown sucks, and so does gym class. Minghao is trying to find the bright side.





	

It is an unbelievable hassle to move three states over in the summer between your freshman and sophomore years of high school when you’ve lived in the same house for your entire life and are not necessarily notorious for being a social butterfly, but this is exactly what Xu Minghao does, because the decision wasn’t in his hands. The decision, after all, does not usually fall in the hands of the moody teenage child anyway, and if Minghao weren’t so moody and teenaged, he might understand why that’s a good thing. Either way, from June eighteenth to June nineteenth, he stops knowing his home address, and from the twentieth onward, he has to relearn.

“You should go out and try to make some friends,” his mom tells him after six consecutive days of sitting in his new room and not unpacking a thing except when he needs it. “There’s a public rec center a few streets over, and I hear they have a group of kids around your age that has practices dancing there. I think it would be good for you to go.” Minghao doesn’t want to go even a little bit, but he’s been alive long enough to know that what his mother is saying is not _please go_ , but instead _you better go_. With this being the case, he goes.

She very unhelpfully neglected to mention what time and what day the alleged and possibly fictitious group of dancing teens has their practice, and she also clearly chose to ignore the fact that Minghao knows neither A) how to get anywhere from their new house nor B) how to get back to their new house from anywhere. He resigns to fumbling with the maps application on his phone and eventually winds up at the entrance to what definitely looks like a rec center, praying he knows his new address well enough to put it back in the app later or, at the very least, the name of the street.

A young woman sitting at the desk inside tells him she has no idea of anything regarding the dance group he’s talking about, but he’s welcome to walk around the facility and see if he can locate them or something else to do and have a nice day. His shoes squeak against the tiled floor as he drags his feet around the corridors, not really willing to open any doors or check to see what’s going on in any of the rooms.

It dawns on him suddenly as he gazes through a window into a room with a heavily occupied pool that he has no reason to believe his mother even has a reliable source for the information she gave him. He has yet to see her speak with any of their neighbors, much less dig up information on spots her quiet, dancing son might fit in. Has she even met any of the neighbors? Do any of them even have kids? Was merely getting him out of the house her only goal? The whole thing is starting to reek of deception, but he can’t ponder on it too long, because at the moment things begin seeming most dubious, he rounds a corner and sees a few teenage boys moving wildly to music through a door which has been carelessly left open.

He trudges warily toward the open entryway, keeping his eyes fixed on the boys inside. There’s four of them, and not one seems to notice at all as he approaches, all too absorbed in kicking their feet around to warm up. Once he reaches the doorway and stands there awkwardly, trying to decide if he should say something or walk in or just leave, a kid with bleached hair and puffy cheeks turns to look at him.

“Hey,” he says congenially, adjusting his sweatband, “can I help you with something?”

“I was told,” Minghao begins softly, gnawing at his lip in that nervous way his mom has tried numerous times to stop him from doing, “that there are some kids my age who practice dancing here. Do you know…?” He isn’t quite sure how to finish the question, but the other guy seems to get it anyway, nodding with zeal and breaking into a wide grin.

“If you’re as old as you look, that’s probably us.” He strides over cheerfully, wiping a hand on his gym shorts before extending it. “I’m Soonyoung, and I’m in charge, sort of.” A small guy with mean-looking eyes who’s stretching his arms scoffs at that, but Soonyoung pretends not to notice.

“I’m Minghao,” he says, hesitantly taking the still slightly clammy hand offered to him.

“What grade are you in, Minghao?” Soonyoung withdraws his hands and furrows his brow like he’s forgetting something for a second before he apparently remembers. “Actually, where do you go to school? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”

“Well, I just moved here,” Minghao explains, “but I’m going to be going to… uh…. West Milton?” He really has no clue if he’s remembering the name correctly, but the way the rest of the boys in the room nod in approval reassures him that he’s just named a real place. “I’ll be a sophomore in August.”

“Oh _hell_ yeah!” bellows a tall guy standing near the opposite wall as he leans up from touching his toes. “Full set!”

“Full set!” Soonyoung echoes loudly, raising his arms in the air excitedly. The guy stretching his arms groans, rolls his eyes, and switches to stretching his quads. Minghao can’t do anything but shift his gaze around until Soonyoung notices the fifty-one layers of confusion in his eyes. “We all go to West Milton, too,” he explains.

“Ah.” Minghao nods and tries to act like he now fully understands, but it would be a long shot to try to make it any less convincing. He’s never been much of an actor.

“Jun and I,” Soonyoung clarifies further, gesturing to the tall boy, “are seniors.” He juts a finger in the direction of the quad stretching guy. “Jihoon over there is a junior.” His hand swivels around to point at last at the final kid in the room, who has yet to say anything. “And little Chan is going to be a freshman. So since you’re a sophomore, that means we have a full set!” His excitement wanes with Minghao’s continued silence. “I mean, if you want to dance with us.”

“Uh, yeah, if that’s okay.”

Minghao’s kind of worried because he doesn’t know whether he’s just walked into the middle of amateur hour or is surrounded by world class pros, and he genuinely does not know which would be worse. Thankfully, when they start to explain their routine and show some of the steps, it looks like they’re neither, and he silently rejoices, though he still won’t thank his mother for making him go.

“We usually practice about this time on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays during the summer, and then after school on the same days once it starts,” Soonyoung tells him as they leave. It’s not like Minghao has anything better to do, so that’s how he spends the final six weeks of summer.

On Wednesday of the final week in July, they decide to push practice later in the evening because of some conflict or other Soonyoung has that he goes into very vague detail about for thirteen minutes. Minghao still isn’t really sure what the heart of the issue is by the time he’s finished, but he agrees to the later time anyway. He figures he’s got a good enough grip on the way home by now that he can make it even if he’s only got streetlights to guide him, and it’s not like he ever does anything but come to dance anyway.

His confidence in his ability to make it home is shaken immediately when he walks out the front doors that evening and has no idea which street is the first one he usually takes to get home. With the sun long set, he has to get way closer to the street signs than he typically likes to get, and he feels like a bona fide grandpa as he squints at the letters, trying to decipher the names. He thinks he’s almost got the entire name of this street figured out—it definitely starts with “Elm”—when he hears a loud burst of breathy giggles coming from somewhere behind him and whips his head around without thinking.

They’re not very close, but they’re definitely there, two guys standing much too close and much too connected for Minghao to act like they’re anything but a couple. One of the guys is standing with his back to Minghao, broad and muscular, while he snakes an arm up to cup the face of the other guy, a little more slender with his hair tied back in a neat ponytail. The bulkier guy dips down to place a noisy kiss on his neck at the exact moment the other guy makes unintentional eye contact with Minghao. It’s at this moment that Minghao decides all roads eventually lead to home and turns to bolt down the nearest street; “Elm” kind of sounds familiar anyway.

Minghao is still kind of bothered by it when he gets home because he firmly believes not only in getting a god damn room but also in not making fucking eye contact with a third party while you’re making out. Maybe that’s just him. He’s actually not even sure how he made it home with the added distraction of all that annoyance, but he’s a little impressed with himself that he did. The subtle happiness that comes with being impressed by himself is extinguished immediately when his mom’s voice follows him up the stairs and tells him they have to go up to the school the next day to get all of his transfer bullshit finalized.

There is only about one thing Minghao can imagine that’s worse than transferring schools after living in one place your whole life and suddenly having no friends, and that thing would be having to retake gym class at your new school where you have no friends because your new school system doesn’t feel like counting your previous gym credit. It is for this precise reason that Minghao leaves the school incredibly miffed despite his mother’s assurance that it’s “just gym class” and he’ll “be fine so stop moping.”

“I have to take gym again because the school didn’t want to take the P.E. credit from my last school,” he whines the next afternoon as the five of them walk out of dance practice.

“Seriously?” Jun asks. “That sucks dick.” Jihoon snorts.

“Well, maybe you’ll be in my gym class,” Chan consoles him. “That could be kinda fun, maybe.”

“No, it won’t be fun,” Jihoon promises. “Having a friend in class makes it _bearable_. Nothing can make it fun.”

“Wasn’t Seokmin in your gym class?” Soonyoung muses. “He said it was fun.”

“Seokmin is an outlier. I bet he would say watching grass grow is fun if you asked him.”

“Anyway,” Soonyoung sighs, “don’t let Jihoon scare you. It’s not that bad. You’ll be fine.”

The issue isn’t really whether Minghao will be fine; it’s not like he’s afraid he’ll die in gym class. The issue is that it’s the most universally insufferable class for almost every high school kid, and the one kid who doesn’t find it insufferable always takes it way too seriously. The issue is that he has endured it once already and is now being forced back into that semi-sweaty hell.

Before he’s ready for it, the first day of school comes along, dragging him through unfamiliar halls that all smell bizarrely like latex gloves. Given that he knows a total of four people in the entire school, he’s not surprised when he knows a total of zero in every class. He is, however, still disappointed when he gets to gym, his final class of the day, and finds Chan on his way out as he passes through the door, a very clear indicator that they won’t be in the same class.

The class is a hybrid of time in the classroom learning about health or something and time in the actual gym pretending to play sports or something. Today, they’re meeting in the classroom. Minghao arrives fairly early and cops a seat at the far back. He watches the remainder of the class file in unexcitedly—one kid is wearing sports apparel and Minghao already knows he’s the one who takes it too seriously—and  is in the middle of starting to space out when a guy with long hair struts through the doorway.

He’s undeniably pretty, long blonde hair and lively brown eyes that shimmer even under the dull lights, high cheekbones and a graceful smile full of straight, white teeth. He’s also giving Minghao a weird vibe of familiarity, but he’ not up to focusing on why that is because he’s too distracted by how there’s no way this guy is in his class. Everything about him makes it very plain that he’s not a freshman—the confidence in his walk, the maturity of his features—and the way he addresses the teacher assures Minghao he’s no transfer student.

“What’s going on, Chad?” he asks boldly, raising his hand for a high-five that doesn’t come. “Have a good summer?”

“Clearly, I need to remind you _again_ to call me Coach Evans.” The guy drops his hand into his pocket, face morphing into a sweet smile.

“Oh, Chad, don’t be such a snooze.”

“I see you’re back in my class again for the fourth year in a row,” he jabs, and Minghao’s eyes widen. Fourth year? If he’s using context clues correctly, and this guy is taking gym for the fourth time, that means he is not only a senior, but one who has failed gym class three times. Minghao’s got a feeling in his gut that he’ll be somehow even worse than the overly serious kid. “You must really like gym class, huh?”

“Something like that,” he drawls, voice dripping honey. “I was thinking maybe I’ll fail again this year and postpone my graduation just to give you the honor of having me in class again. What do you think? Solid plan, right?”

“Just sit down somewhere, Jeonghan.” _Jeonghan_. Minghao doesn’t mean to remember that, but his brain betrays him and does it anyway. He also doesn’t mean to keep his eyes trained on Jeonghan as he takes his seat, but of course he fucking does it anyway, and when he accidentally makes eye contact, he finally realizes why he seems so familiar.

“Hey.” Jeonghan continues looking him dead in the eyes while he speaks, lips slanted in an unnervingly charming smirk. “Cutie over there in the gray sweatshirt.” Somehow, it’s not very surprising when Minghao glances around and finds with a quickening heartrate that he is the only individual in the whole room wearing such a garment.

“Me?” he asks even though he already knows it’s him. The way Jeonghan smiles back at him is making his face feel hot, but he’s not sure why.

“Yeah, you.” He leans forward out of his seat, though it doesn’t do much to make the three rows of desks between them seem any less. “I think I know you from somewh—”

The bell rings, and Minghao is sure there is a god out there that’s got an eye out for him. He exhales a heavy breath as Coach Evans stalks to the front of the room, and he can still feel Jeonghan’s eyes on him while he tries to pay attention to something about assigned seats and the whole year and sitting, not necessarily in that order. When Minghao thinks his context clues have brought him up to speed, the coach is already pointing unceremoniously at seats and calling names off the row in alphabetical order.

He’s going in the snake pattern teachers sometimes use where they go forward up one row and backward down the next, and by the time he gets to Minghao, they’re snaking back up the back of the last row. His gut is clenched when they’re halfway through the list and he and Jeonghan are both still standing, and it feels like he could turn coal to diamond in there now that they are the only two remaining without seats.

“Xu,” he calls out, and Minghao shuffles to the back of the row on the farthest side of the class, plopping unenthusiastically into the seat. It creaks when he sets his backpack down, and one of the legs is way too short, and if that weren’t bad enough on its own, Jeonghan parades over and slams down into the seat right in front of him with gusto. “Yoon,” Coach Evans sighs a few beats late, but Jeonghan isn’t paying attention.

“Like I was saying,” he says in a hushed voice, whipping around and propping his elbow on Minghao’s wobbly abomination of a desk, “have we met before?” Up close, it’s even more evident what a nice face he has. Minghao is momentarily too distracted by his eyelashes to answer the question.

“No,” he says bluntly. Jeonghan hums and flips a wave of sandy hair over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes.

“That seems like something someone who’s lying would say,” he muses. The cogs of his brain are starting to turn, and he makes it very obvious on his face. “I’ve definitely seen you before. I don’t forget faces.” Minghao’s starting to sweat under his scrutiny, but it’ll be too suspicious if he budges, so he attempts the greatest amount of calm he can muster when being stared down from seven inches away. Unfortunately, realization seems to hit Jeonghan anyway. “Oh! You were—”

“Jeonghan, I know you won’t pay attention anyway,” the coach groans from the board, where he’s already begun discussing the way the course will progress throughout the year; Minghao feels bad that he didn’t even notice, “but can you at least give that poor kid behind you a chance to pass this class?” Jeonghan rolls his eyes but turns around anyway, and Minghao doesn’t catch a word for the entire rest of the hour.

“Yoon Jeonghan?” Soonyoung purses his lips as he squats and kicks one leg out to stretch that afternoon at dance practice. “Yeah, I know him.” He pulls on his toes pensively, quirking an eyebrow. “Why?”

“He’s in my gym class.” The words have barely left his tongue before Jihoon is throwing his head back in a wild guffaw.

“Of fucking course he is,” he pants out between cackles. That’s the kind of statement which requires some time of backstory or prior knowledge to fully understand, but Minghao has neither, so he’s forced to ask.

“Is he, like, a bad guy?”

“I mean, no,” Jun muses. “But he has failed gym three times.”

“How do you even fail gym once?” Chan asks in outrage, abandoning his toe touches in sheer resentment of such a notion. “It’s _gym_.”

“With a very special disdain for exercise and an uncanny ability to fall asleep in class,” Jihoon explains. “It’s worked for him every time so far.”

“He’s really not a bad guy,” Soonyoung promises, straightening. “I mean, he gossips a lot and he never shows up anywhere on time and he actively tries to distract you from accomplishing tasks and he doesn’t take anything seriously and he falls asleep sometimes while you’re telling him something important and he almost caught my kitchen on fire once after I explicitly told him not to go in there, but he’s a good person.”

“None of that was reassuring,” Jihoon points out.

“Barring the near-arson,” Jun interjects, “he’s really not that bad.” Jihoon scoffs.

“Jun’s biased because they dated for a month in tenth grade.”

“But that was before I met _you_ ,” he singsongs, and Jihoon grimaces. Soonyoung snaps his fingers.

“That reminds me. Jeonghan is also the biggest flirt in the world.” Minghao nods in understanding. “Bottom line is, he’s okay, but you’re really better off ignoring him.”

Minghao decides he’ll go with that option because he’d really rather not have a conversation about how they accidentally made eye contact while Jeonghan was in the middle of kissing someone, but Jeonghan must not be picking up the “don’t talk to me” vibe he’s trying so hard to emit.

“Afternoon, beautiful,” he says the following afternoon, sliding into his seat with his back already facing the board. He leans onto Minghao’s desk with an elbow and rests his chin in his palm, gazing back with a dreamy look in his eyes. “Have a good second day of classes?” He doesn’t even give Minghao enough time to make it evident that he’s ignoring him before he follows up with, “Wait, I forgot to ask this yesterday, but you’re not a freshman, right? You don’t look like a freshman.”

“I’m a sophomore.” Minghao would punch himself in the face right now if he could. “I transferred here.” Jeonghan nods in an I-knew-it-all-along sort of way, and Minghao is very hopeful he’ll turn around, but he does not.

“I see. So, what’s your name again? I’m Jeonghan.” He extends a hand enough that he almost shoves fingers up Minghao’s nostrils, but he won’t let himself succumb this time. He diverts his attention to the board, where literally nothing is happening, and prays that the teacher will step up to it soon and do something to distract him from the pretty eyes boring holes into his head.

He knew it would be foolishly optimistic to expect Jeonghan to turn around and leave him alone right away, but he was really not anticipating the dedication with which Jeonghan would hold his outstretched hand in his face. A solid minute and a half of no response later and he’s still going strong, wrist not having dropped a centimeter since the initial offer of the handshake. Minghao is half-tempted to take it just so he won’t have to breathe in the scent of hand skin anymore (even if it does smell really nice, like citrus lotion), but he digs his hands into his pockets resolutely.

“Fine,” Jeonghan says eventually, “you don’t have to tell me because it’s written on your pencil case… _Minghao_.” He smacks his palm down on the middle of the desk with a loud thud that contrasts starkly with the warm smile curving his lips. “And, you know, I hate to be that guy, but don’t you think it’s just a _teensy_ bit unkind to blatantly ignore someone when they’re talking to you?”

“Sorry,” Minghao says, and he’d be lying if he acted like he didn’t feel a pang of guilt. Jeonghan’s smile becomes a great deal more genuine immediately.

“That’s more like it! So, do you want to hang out with me after school today?”

“Excuse me?” Minghao sputters, half sure he didn’t hear that right. “No.”

“Why not?” Jeonghan is legitimately pouting, and while it should be incredibly off-putting and uncomfortable to see an almost-grown man stick his lips out in a pout, Minghao finds that he strangely doesn’t mind it. “Be honest, did someone tell you not to talk to me?”

“I mean…” He’s sharper than he seems at first glance. “No.” Jeonghan scrunches his nose warily, searching Minghao’s face.

“It was Jihoon, I bet. How do you know him?” He leans forward with each word, more and more of his hair sweeping over Minghao’s desk. “What did he tell you? It’s all lies!”

“Why are you assuming it was Jihoon?”

“It has to be Jihoon. He’s the only person I know who doesn’t like me.” Minghao genuinely doesn’t have the heart to tell him it was Soonyoung, so he keeps his lips pressed together in a tight line. “Anyway, what did he say about me?” Minghao figures he can either tell the truth now or have Jeonghan squeeze it out of him over the course of the hour, so he settles on the more painless option.

“That you’re a flirt and you don’t take anything seriously.” Jeonghan narrows his eyes and frowns.

“I guess those aren’t _necessarily_ false,” he says, and he doesn’t look very thrilled about admitting it, “but they don’t matter. You should still hang out with me.”

“Why do you want me to hang out with you?”

“You’re cute.” He shrugs and grins like that’s an actual reason. Minghao knows his cheeks are getting red, but before he can argue, the bell rings, and Jeonghan uncharacteristically whips around and pays attention to Coach Evans as he begins the dull intro to a lecture about muscles or something.

Never in his life has Minghao escaped a class so fast. The second the bell rings, he’s sprinting out the door as quickly as his legs will take him. Three teachers call after him demanding he slow down as he races toward the bus lot at warp speed, but he pays them no mind, running straight until he’s boarded his bus before anyone else has even had the time to get there.

“Why’d you leave class so fast yesterday?” Jeonghan asks the next day when he slides into his seat. His hair is tied back into a ponytail like it was the first time Minghao saw him, and it brings back uncomfortable flashbacks alongside the unwelcome observation that he has nice ears. “I mean, not that I’m not impressed, because I kind of am, but were you seriously that determined to ditch me?”

“Uh,” Minghao says, because even though the answer is yes, it feels too harsh to say it outright. Jeonghan rolls his eyes.

“You could have just said, ‘I don’t want to hang out with you,’ you know.”

“Would you have taken that?”

“No. I still would have asked you to hang out with me.” He narrows his eyes with a bright smile. “Speaking of, hang out with me today.”

“I’m busy.”

“No way!” Jeonghan cries. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. I have dance practice.” Minghao sees something shift in his eyes, and he’s not sure he’s fond of it.

“At the rec center?” he asks brightly. “Let me give you a ride!”

“I don’t need a ride,” Minghao informs him. “Soonyoung is giving me one.”

“Soonyoung’s the worst driver on the planet who has yet to get in a wreck. For your sake, you should let me take you.”

“No thanks.” Jeonghan pouts and the bell rings. He turns around, but Minghao is too busy being focused on the end of his ponytail brushing the top of his desk to pay attention to the lesson.

“Hey, don’t leave so quick.” Jeonghan’s voice stalls Minghao as he shoves his belongings into his bag at light speed. Minghao makes it very obvious that he is not keen on being held up, but Jeonghan’s visage very much says he doesn’t give a shit. “Walk with me to the parking lot.”

“Why?”

“Always with the questions,” Jeonghan groans, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “We’re both going that way anyway, and Soonyoung’s spot is like three down from mine, that’s why.” He drapes his arm over Minghao’s shoulder and commences pulling him along despite the fact that his backpack is still wholly unzipped, and there’s not much left for him to do but be dragged.

Minghao can feel two sets of eyes boring holes into him as they meander through the parking lot. Soonyoung and Chan stand poised by a dull gray sedan, nearly drowned out amidst a crowd of other students milling about, but he is still acutely aware of their stares falling on him, or more specifically, on Jeonghan walking unusually closely beside him. The shoulder-arm contact is no longer present, but the way he’s hovering within centimeters of Minghao’s side is like it never left, and Soonyoung and Chan are doing a decidedly less than good job at being subtle.

“No need to gawk,” Jeonghan calls from a few spaces away. “I know I’m beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Soonyoung agrees halfheartedly, shaking himself out of blatantly staring as the pair nears. “Anyway, why are you walking Minghao over here like he’s your son and you’re scared to let him go on the first day of school?”

“I think I’m well within my rights to fear for his safety considering it’s you who’s driving.”

“Excuse me?” Soonyoung scoffs. “I don’t want to hear a _word_ from the man behind that parking job.” He jabs his finger toward a car a few spaces down that is doing its darnedest to be horizontal in a vertical space. By some incomprehensible miracle, the wheels of the white Honda are just barely brushing the lines. Jeonghan sighs and strides unwaveringly toward the vehicle.

“Driving and parking are two very different things,” he calls over his shoulder. “I am an excellent driver. Parking, however, is not my forte.” Minghao watches as he struggles to slide into the driver’s seat through an impossibly small opening, the result of being entirely too close to the car in the neighboring spot. “See you tomorrow, Minghao!” he calls just as he somehow manages to make it inside and slam the door shut. The three outside Soonyoung’s car watch in nervous silence as he struggles to back out without hitting anything, exhaling in unison when he finally manages to do so.

The drive to the rec center is one hundred times more terrifying than Minghao ever could have anticipated. As Soonyoung rounds a corner at a speed the cops would surely be tailing him for if they were around, Minghao thinks rejecting Jeonghan’s offer may have actually cost him his life. His knuckles are white on the seat, and he can see that Chan isn’t faring much better, and when they finally whip into the lot (still going much too fast, of course), he’s amazed that they were able to so boldly flirt with death and make it out to tell the tale.

“Oh yeah, I just remembered,” Soonyoung grunts as they wrap up practice that evening, sweat dripping from his hair and onto his nose. “Why were you walking out with Jeonghan to the parking lot this afternoon?”

“I mean, we were both going that way. And he made me, kind of.” Minghao isn’t really sure why he feels the need to justify it as though he’s done something wrong. Soonyoung raises his eyebrows slightly and flicks his eyes to Jun conspicuously. Minghao follows his gaze to find that Jun’s eyebrows are also raised. “What? Why are you looking at each other like that?”

In lieu of answering, they just look back and forth between each other and Minghao curiously. Eventually, Jihoon sighs. “Seems like Jeonghan is interested in you,” he explains.

“Is that a bad thing?” Minghao asks before realizing there’s a more pressing issue at hand. “Actually, doesn’t Jeonghan already have a boyfriend? Some big guy?”

“Seungcheol? No, they broke up, I think,” Soonyoung says, finally breaking his silence. “But that does point to another concern.”

“Yeah,” Jun muses, thoughtfully stroking his chin. “You’re not exactly… his type, I guess.”

“I’m not his type?” Minghao doesn’t know whether he feels relieved or disappointed, but his senses are telling him it ought to be the first thing.

“How do I put this?” Soonyoung scratches his head as he searches for the words he needs, twisting them around in his head painfully slowly. Minghao wishes he would just get on with it. “Jeonghan’s the kind of guy who likes having something to hold onto.” The words are reaching his ears, but they’re just vague enough that he’s having trouble making sense of them, and he makes it plain enough to let Soonyoung know he needs to explain further. “You know, like… a little more…” He gestures frantically at his thighs, wiggling his fingers to showcase them. “Meat?”

“Like… an ass?”

“Yeah,” Jun agrees. “And, you know, not to offend you or anything, because it’s not really a bad thing, but you’re like super skinny.”

“Hold on.” Jihoon looks to be deep in thought, eyes narrowed in contemplation. “It makes sense for Seokmin, Mingyu, and Seungcheol, but what about Jun? He’s an anomaly. An assless wonder.”

“Excuse me? I’ve been told I have child-bearing hips.”

“By whom?”

“I don’t remember, but I definitely know it has been said to me.” Jihoon scoffs.

“Anyway,” Soonyoung says, dropping his voice, “if you just don’t pay him any mind, he’ll probably be over it in like a week or two. He gets over things fast, so he shouldn’t be bugging you for too long.” Minghao sure hopes so.

“You look like a man who’s looked death in the eyes,” is the first thing Jeonghan says when he comes into class the next day, eyes twinkling as he slides into the chair of his desk. “Soonyoung’s driving was just as bad as I said, right?”

“Worse,” Minghao answers, and Jeonghan laughs a laugh much fuller than Minghao had expected. It’s bubbly and almost musical despite sounding kind of tired, and his whole face crinkles up with it. There’s a smile threatening to pull at Minghao’s lips, but he beats it down.

“I hate to say I told you so,” Jeonghan says in a way that implies he’s actually very happy to say it. “You should have taken my offer. Which still stands, by the way.”

“No thanks.” He rolls his eyes while maintaining the smile on his face and turns around without another word. Part of Minghao is so sure that was too easy, and that part is justified when Jeonghan whips back around to face him moments later at lightning speed.

“I almost forgot! Hang out with me today.”

“No.” A long groan combined with a heavy sigh rattles through the air as he swivels back to face the board.

“You can’t avoid me forever,” he says tiredly, laying his head down on his desk and closing his eyes. Minghao waits for him to sit back up, but as he watches the rest of the students file into the classroom, it becomes very evident that that’s not the plan.

“Are you going to sleep right now?” Jeonghan cracks one eye open at the question and still somehow manages to look like he can’t believe what he’s just been asked.

“Of course. It’s Thursday.” Minghao doesn’t have the energy to pretend like he understands how that’s a reason. “I get really tired on Thursdays,” Jeonghan explains.

“You’re going to fail gym again if you just sleep in class.”

“What, do you care?” The smirk spreading onto his face is unsettling, but Minghao can’t quite put his finger on why. He’s not sure he wants to try. “Anyway, I think Chad’ll pass me no matter what I do.” His eye falls back shut as he pauses around a yawn. “He doesn’t want me back for a fifth year.”

He doesn’t even stir when the bell rings in that clamorous way that it does, and Minghao has a tough time keeping focused for the duration of class. He’d thought it would be easier to pay attention with Jeonghan not trying to talk to him, but the rise and fall of his back with each breath proves to be far more distracting than he’ll ever be willing to admit. Every word out of Coach Evans’ mouth goes in one ear and out the other, and before the hand on the clock has moved a minute, class is over.

The next week, they head into the actual gymnasium for the first time. It smells like shoes, and Minghao’s not excited about it. He’s especially not excited about having to wear the shiny new gym uniform his mom bought for him, partially because it fits as comfortably as a rubber band fits a lobster claw, but mostly because the boy’s locker room is an undying hell in which there is no solace to be found. His only hope is that he can make it in and out fast enough to evade the typical happenings within and turn a blind eye to all he does happen to see by accident.

Of course, there are too damn many boys in the class for any such hope to be upheld. The whole lot of them is crammed in wall to wall, and any swift escape is effectively blocked by the human barrier suffocating the narrow hallway to the door. Minghao finds himself shoved into a corner by the entire crowd of boys double his size, and when he finally resigns to his doomed fate of changing between the wall and a locker, he feels a very intent nudge in his side. Just as much as he’s determined not to turn around, the nudger is determined to be acknowledged, and eventually, he gets tired enough to turn and make eye contact with a smiling Jeonghan.

Minghao almost chokes because he wasn’t expecting him to be already shirtless or to have such a surprisingly well-toned body or to have a very present and therefore incredibly distracting happy trail, and he finds as he turns around all three of those things happening at the same time. He knows he’s blushing when he turns back around as quickly as his muscles will move him, but he hopes Jeonghan will elect to ignore it.

“Oh, sorry,” he says, sounding not very much like he’s sorry and also not very much like he’s electing to ignore it. Minghao can really hear the smirk on his lips, and considering they’ve only known each other for all of a week, that alarms him. “Anyway, are you excited to exercise today?” Minghao snorts.

“You sound so fake excited.”

“I am fake excited,” Jeonghan sighs tiredly, bumping into Minghao as he pulls his shorts on. “Of all the rooms in this establishment, this is the one I’d set on fire first if I were plotting arson.” A thin chuckle that Minghao doesn’t quash in time slips out, and Jeonghan nudges him again when he hears it. “Yeah! You can laugh!” Minghao turns stoic in the blink of an eye, and Jeonghan huffs in irritation. “No, keep laughing. Admit you enjoy my company and come hang out with me.”

“If I consistently say no,” Minghao begins, glancing to his side and finding Jeonghan thankfully fully clad, “when will you stop asking me to hang out with you?”

“Never ever.” His voice is a lot closer to Minghao’s ear when he speaks again, and it’s unnerving. “So you may as well just say yes.”

“Well,” Minghao says brightly as he pulls his shorts on, pretending both that he didn’t listen and that he’s talking out loud to himself, “guess I better head out to the gym now since I’m dressed.”

“What a funny coincidence. Me too. Let us converse as we walk together to the gym floor.” Unfortunately for Jeonghan, Minghao is already walking away before he’s finished talking, but fortunately for Jeonghan, the wall of other boys still in the middle of changing is preventing him from being able to book it out of there. “You know, you’re kind of an asshole,” he says once they’ve managed to squeeze through the pack and emerge in the wide expanse of gym that still somehow manages to be just as musty even though it’s infinities more open. Minghao snorts.

“Are you going to leave me alone, then?”

“Of course not.” Jeonghan settles beside him, and Minghao hates that their last names are so close alphabetically not for the first time. “You’re still cute and I still want to get to know you better.”

“Stop calling me cute,” Minghao grumbles, and Jeonghan laughs next to him. Minghao almost laughs too even though nothing is funny, and he realizes at this precise moment just how dangerous a contagious laugh can be.

“I’m only saying it ‘cause it’s true.” His elbows nudges into Minghao’s side again because he’s sitting too damn close, but he doesn’t say anything else; Minghao wishes he would, because sitting three inches from someone and not speaking to them is unbelievably awkward, but Jeonghan has never seemed to let awkward stop him before.

Before too long, the bell rings, and Coach Evans instructs them to walk a few laps around the gym before they start doing whatever it is that they’re supposed to be doing for the hour. Jeonghan sticks by Minghao’s side insistently, blabbering to him about how much he hates the way the gym smells and how none of the ceiling tiles are the same color and how the lights are so dim they may as well just get rid of them altogether. Somewhere in the third lap, he makes a pun so bad that Minghao forces himself to forget what it was, but he accidentally laughs, too, which is all the encouragement Jeonghan needs to keep talking.

By the end of the day, he thinks Jeonghan is actually kind of fun to talk to, and by Thursday afternoon, he isn’t at all unexcited to talk to him while they make their rounds about the gym. When they force their way out of the locker room and head to their designated seats on the floor, however, Jeonghan fully reclines without hesitation the moment he makes contact with the poorly-polished hardwood, cradling his head in his arms.

When Minghao says, “Are you really going to sleep?” he doesn’t intend to sound as disappointed as he winds up sounding. Jeonghan’s eyes pop open without a hint of the lethargy characteristic to their owner, lips sliding into a subtle curve.

“Do you want me to walk laps with you?” Minghao’s lips flatten into a line because they really cannot decide whether they would rather say yes or no, and Jeonghan heaves himself upright before they have time to flip a coin. “Have no fear. I’ll walk with you. But keep in mind that since today is my designated nap day, you now owe me in the form of hanging out with me sometime.” Minghao thinks he can live with that if it means not suffering through laps alone.

“He’s really not bad at all,” Minghao confesses the next day at the end of dance practice, and Jihoon fixes him with a look like he’s just claimed to be seven feet tall and Italian.

“Unbelievable,” he mutters. “Even you succumbed so soon… I thought you could stick it out, too.”

“Why is it that you don’t like him, exactly?” Minghao asks, because it has started to eat at him since the beginning of the week. Jihoon shrugs.

“I don’t dislike him, really.” A mischievous grin pulls at his lips. “It’s just fun to make everyone think I do.” The smile drops his face as he continues talking. “Anyway, you should still be careful. Getting involved with him as anything beyond the level of friends is bound to turn out poorly, and we don’t need you getting hurt.”

“What Jihoon is trying to say,” Jun says around a cough, “is we care about you. And don’t get too caught up in anything. I know Jeonghan can be… distracting.”

“Interesting,” Jihoon hisses, jabbing him in the ribs. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I promise you’re twenty times more distracting,” he wheezes, pulling the elbow from his abdomen and slamming his own into Jihoon’s side.

As Minghao watches them walk toward Jun’s car, continuing to elbow each other mercilessly, he mulls over their advice. Being that they have more experience and therefore more knowledge regarding Jeonghan, he thinks he probably ought to listen to them, but his gut is telling him that they’re drastically overexaggerating, and he’s also a firm believer in listening to his gut. The majority of his walk is spent thinking about what would be better in the long run, but he forgets to decide before he gets home, and his mom ordered pizza for dinner, so he doesn’t think about it again until he’s walking laps with Jeonghan again on Monday, and by then, it’s too hard to focus.

They’re back in the classroom the following week, and it’s definitely Wednesday when Jeonghan arrives to his seat and says, “Can I borrow a pencil?” before anything else.

“What do you need a pencil for? You don’t take notes.” Though Minghao says this with a fair amount of skepticism, he reaches into his bag to dig for a pencil anyway, handing it over once he’s fished one out. Jeonghan’s fingers brush his in a way that seems to be very deliberate when he plucks it from Minghao’s grasp.

“Thanks,” he says cheerfully, then turns around without another word to put his head down on his desk.

“It’s not even Thursday,” Minghao says curiously, but he doesn’t respond. Minghao prods his back with the pointy end of his pencil in indignation. “If you’re not going to use it, give it back.”

“No,” Jeonghan mumbles resolutely, muffled by his arms and the desk. Minghao pokes a few more times for good measure, but Jeonghan makes no indication that being stabbed in the back by a spear of graphite bothers him, so he gives up and resigns to trying to pay attention for the duration of the period. It doesn’t really work.

The bell serves as a very effective alarm at the end of the period. When Jeonghan manages to sleep through the jarringly loud afternoon announcements, Minghao isn’t sure if there is anything that can wake him up, but the bell seems to do the trick, his head lifting in time with the abominable clang. “Morning,” he says, pulling himself lazily out of his chair, and something about the way he says it is highly suspicious. Minghao narrows his eyes.

“Can I have my pencil back?” he asks. Jeonghan beams.

“Only if you let me give you a ride to the rec center.” Minghao sighs.

Soonyoung and Chan stand transfixed again as the pair approaches, jaws slack while they watch them near and continue straight past Soonyoung’s car without stopping. Jeonghan doesn’t even bother to explain why they don’t halt, instead electing to silently usher Minghao forward as he fixes the bewildered duo with a gleaming smile. The way Soonyoung’s head turns slowly to follow them despite his not bothering to ask what’s going on almost makes it seem like Jeonghan has him hypnotized, and the possibility of that being the case isn’t really a thought Minghao wants to entertain.

He has an easy enough time getting into the passenger seat, but Jeonghan’s parking job is stalling their escape from the parking lot due to the driver himself having to wiggle carefully through the opening of the door to avoid scratching a nice line into the neighboring vehicle. While he struggles to enter, Minghao takes a look around the inside of the car. There’s an overwhelming amount of crumbled receipts and change littering the floor, but surprisingly little other debris.

When he pivots around to check out the backseat, he almost does a very real spit take at what he sees. Not one, not two, but six different blankets folded neatly atop the seat and a pillow resting against the back of the driver’s seat. He counts the blankets at least four times, unable to comprehend the necessity for even one, let alone six, only torn from his task by the sound of the door slamming as Jeonghan finally manages to make it inside.

“Admiring my mobile nap sanctuary, I see,” he says proudly.

“You have six blankets in the back of your car,” Minghao observes softly without turning around.

“Seems we’ve got a mathematician in the building.” Minghao chooses to ignore the fact that they are not in a building.

“Why?” Jeonghan groans like he can’t believe he even has to answer such a stupid question, and Minghao is so offended by just the sound that he finally quits eyeing the bundles of cloth and turns to face his chauffeur.

“Because I like to sleep, Minghao,” he reminds him. “As this car is basically an extension of myself, I reserve the right to be able to take a goddamn nap whenever I please, and how can I nap decently without a blanket?”

“But why six?”

“Sometimes one is the best, and sometimes another one is better.” He huffs out a sigh, but his lips curl into a smile anyway. “Why does nobody understand me?” Minghao eyes him curiously as he turns the key in the ignition and commences the ordeal that is trying to exit the parking spot without a scuff.

“You must really like sleeping,” he muses. Jeonghan keeps his eyes locked on the rearview mirror as he answers.

“Like is an understatement,” he says with a grin.

Minghao doesn’t know what compels him, but he asks it despite the way his stomach is kind of tightening at the thought. “Is there anything you like besides sleeping?” Jeonghan’s eyes flit from the mirror to Minghao for just a second before flying back to watch for any damage, and Minghao’s stomach situation gets just a little bit worse.

“You,” he says breezily, backing out of the spot in one smooth sweep. Laughter jingles through the air when Minghao turns his burning face to look out the window, and he thinks he probably should have cut his losses and let Jeonghan keep the pencil.

Once they pull into the parking lot, Minghao tries to make the speediest escape possible, but he’s too nervous and it’s making him fumble with the seatbelt more than he ought to be. Jeonghan chuckles softly while he struggles, and it’s only once he’s got the damn thing off and firmly gripped the door handle that Jeonghan thinks to say, “Don’t get out yet!” Minghao turns around unenthusiastically and pretends not to notice how fast his heart is beating. “I need to give you back your pencil.”

“You can keep it,” Minghao says, but Jeonghan is already presenting it to him. When Minghao reaches to grab it, Jeonghan quickly envelops his hand in both of his own. They’re too warm.

“Thanks for letting me give you a ride,” he says in a voice like sugar, and Minghao can’t help but think it should have been the other way around as he climbs out of the car without a word.

Eight eyes are trained on him with a ferocity that says they won’t be sated until they get answers when he walks into the room to join his companions. “He’s so red,” mutters the mouth connected to one of the sets of eyes, and the rest of the mouths hum in agreement. Minghao can’t be bothered to pay attention to who spoke, so he just plops his bag down on the floor.

“You’re really red,” Chan says finally, and while it does shatter the silent part of the awkward silence, the awkward portion remains present in full force.

“Yeah.”

“Jeonghan brought you here,” Soonyoung says, attempting to coax out more of a response.

“Yeah.”

“Those two things are related to each other, aren’t they?” Jihoon accuses with narrowed eyes.

“Yeah.” The rest of the boys sigh in unison.

“Well,” Jun begins, “we may as well get to dancing.”

To Minghao’s great relief, nobody bugs him about anything again until they’ve finished practicing, which gives his head a lot of time to get back to where it needs to be. As they stride out into the early evening heat, Soonyoung slides up beside him.

“I’m not gonna tell you not to get involved with Jeonghan or anything,” he begins softly, “mainly because I don’t expect you to listen, but just know that stuff isn’t really important to him. He doesn’t take anything seriously, and none of us want to see you get hurt.” Minghao nods in place of answering, and Soonyoung just sighs. “All I’m saying is be careful and watch out for yourself.” Minghao just nods again.

He does intend to be careful, but he doesn’t do a very good job. It’s probably the late summer heat getting into his head that makes him start smiling when he sees Jeonghan enter the classroom, and it might be that same heat that keeps him from noticing he’s doing it until Jeonghan’s already smiling back. Maybe it’s the seasonal change in air pressure that makes Jeonghan’s voice sound so nice all of a sudden. Minghao can't pinpoint what exactly it is that’s got him grinning instead of grimacing when he spies Jeonghan’s face, but by the time he catches on, September is on its last legs and he’s thinking that he wasn’t nearly careful enough.

“Hang out with me today,” Jeonghan says on the first Tuesday in October as he strides into class.

“Okay,” Minghao says accidentally. Somewhere in the past few weeks, Jeonghan had neglected to ask even once, and Minghao had forgotten that he was supposed to want to say no. Jeonghan blinks a few times.

“That was easy,” he muses. “I was counting on having to guilt you with it being my birthday, but it’s way better that you just said yes in the first place.”

“It’s your birthday?” Minghao feels bad for not knowing even though there’s no way he could have. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why, should I have?” Jeonghan raises his eyebrows quizzically. “Would you have gotten me something?” Minghao opens his mouth to speak but quickly realizes he has no answer, and Jeonghan snorts when he presses his lips back into a firm line. “I’m just kidding. Anyway, I want you to come celebrate with me today, so it’s better for you that you didn’t make me force you.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

He turns back around after that, and Minghao is really curious where the fuck his heart got the idea to beat so hard and why exactly now is an appropriate time to be testing it out. All they’re doing is sitting in chairs and having a regular old conversation, but he feels like they just ran a four-minute mile. It’s unbelievably bizarre how things out of Jeonghan’s mouth that would have annoyed him a month ago are suddenly very welcome sounds, and he thinks this must just be part of being a fickle adolescent.

After class, they climb into Jeonghan’s car together for the second time. His parking job is infinitely better than it had been on the first occasion; today, he only has to shimmy a little bit to get into the driver’s seat.

“What are we doing?” Minghao chances to ask once they’ve escaped the parking lot. They’re headed down roads in the opposite direction of his house and the rec center, so his ability to guess has been severely restricted.

“Well, I was thinking we could see a movie or something,” he says thoughtfully, chewing on his lip, “and then have dinner. Do you need to let your parents know? Probably, I guess.”

“Probably,” Minghao agrees. _It almost sounds like a date_ , he thinks as he calls his mom to tell her he’ll be hanging out with a friend. He tries not to be offended by how surprised she is that he’s made a friend, and when he hangs up, he asks, “So, are we meeting your other friends at the movie theater?”

“Oh, no.” He flicks his eyes from the road to his passenger briefly, showing off his teeth in a pretty smile. “It’s just going to be us.”

“That makes it seem like this is a date,” Minghao says against his better judgement. Jeonghan keeps smiling.

“I encourage you to think of it as one,” is his response, and Minghao wonders if throwing himself out of the vehicle going at this speed would be enough to kill him before the fire spreading to his cheeks does.

They pull into a spot so far that Minghao can barely even see the theater because Jeonghan is “more comfortable parking when there are no other cars around to hit,” and the already awkwardly long walk to the entrance is only made even more so by the fact that Minghao is unwilling to make any conversation now that he’s been made aware he’s essentially on a date. Jeonghan is walking too close—his knuckles keep brushing the back of Minghao’s hand—and realization is just now setting in that he has no idea where he is and can’t go home if things start to turn south.

“You can relax, you know,” he whispers right next to Minghao’s ear. Minghao sheds at least six layers of skin. “I know I said it’s a date, but you don’t need to be worried about it. I swear I’m not gonna do anything you don’t want me to do.” His eyes crinkle up in a way that makes Minghao’s heart feel slightly too big for its cavity. “Unless you don’t want me to be unbelievably charming, because I’m doing that regardless.” He pulls open the door to the theater with a flourish; Minghao hadn’t even realized they were getting close. “After you.”

Jeonghan pays for both of their tickets even though Minghao argues that he shouldn’t be paying for things on his birthday, and they stride into the theater after acquiring a large bucket of popcorn that he’s sure they won’t finish. The fact that there are zero other people in the entire theater is unsettling, but it’s less unsettling when he recalls they’re here to see a documentary about symbiosis in nature. They cop two seats directly in the middle, and Jeonghan is munching on popcorn by the handful before the previews are over.

Halfway through, Minghao is roughly 100% sure he’s going to fall asleep. He honestly could not care less about yucca moths, and he refuses to even try to bring himself to understand why someone would want to make a movie about them when they’re so horrendously unexciting. When he glances over and sees Jeonghan positively beaming at the screen, though, he almost falls out of his seat. The last thing he thinks before his consciousness fades to black is that he’s never seen something so beautiful.

An insistent nudge to his shoulder stirs him from his slumber, and the first thing he sees is that the credits are rolling to a very drab tune that fits almost disturbingly well. The second thing he sees is that the popcorn bucket is empty, and the third thing he sees is that Jeonghan is smiling while rousing him despite the fact that his technical date fell asleep on him in the movie theater. “The movie’s over,” he whispers gently, like he doesn’t want to disturb the zero other audience members, and Minghao would retort that it’s pretty obvious the movie is over if he didn’t feel so bad about falling asleep.

“Sorry about that,” he says as they walk back to the car, rubbing the tiredness out of his eyes. Jeonghan waves his hand around dismissively.

“Don’t worry about it. I figured you would probably fall asleep. Nobody ever goes with me because they all think the movies are really boring.” It’s at this point Minghao wonders if this is really supposed to be like a date or just a case of Jeonghan forcing a naïve, uninformed soul to spend time with him because everyone else refuses. If the second thing is the case, he’d rather pretend it’s not. Something about that is just way too sad. “Besides, you were cute.”

“Why do you keep saying that…” Minghao sputters. He should be used to it by now, but he can still feel his face getting warm.

“Because it’s true,” he states simply. “And it’s my birthday, so just let me say it.” He opens the door with an unnecessarily charismatic smile, and Minghao huffs but gets in anyway.

Chili’s is their predetermined dinner destination, and they get seated almost immediately since they’re still a fair deal earlier than the typical dinner crowd. To Minghao’s great surprise, Jeonghan orders an appetizer and a regular entrée despite having demolished almost the entire bucket of popcorn by himself. For the sake of tact, Minghao doesn’t say anything about it, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to.

“So,” he says after swallowing a bite of chicken halfway through the meal, “are you having fun?” Minghao ponders for a second before answering.

“Yeah,” he guesses. Even if he did fall asleep in the movie, it would be an outright mistruth to say he’s having a bad time, and even if it were true, it would be jarringly rude to say that directly to Jeonghan’s face on his birthday. Minghao likes to think he’s at least that considerate.

“Excellent.” The light dangling over the table is swirling in his eyes. It’s weirdly mesmerizing. “So, you admit you like hanging out with me, right? Do you admit I’m fun to be around?”

“What’s with all the questions?”

“Just humor me.” Minghao hums.

“You’re fun to be around.”

“And you like hanging out with me?”

“Yes,” Minghao sighs. “I like hanging out with you.”

“Mean it?” There’s a mischievous lilt to his tone, a subtle hint of childishness, and Minghao doesn’t know why he feels like indulging it.

“I mean it.”

Jeonghan chuckles lightly without parting his lips, a musical sound that resonates in Minghao’s chest. “I like you, Minghao,” he says with certainty, eyes suddenly intent and sharp and extremely hard to look into. “I mean that.”

Minghao opens his mouth to speak, but his throat is suddenly way too dry, so he sticks a straw in it instead and starts gulping down water like his life depends on it. And boy, he sure does not remember water ever tasting this good. He can’t get himself to stop drinking it, and that may or may not have anything to do with how intently Jeonghan is gazing at him. His eyes are desperate to escape Jeonghan’s, so they flee in a panic to the wave of hair falling over his shoulder, only they forget not to flit to his hand as he pushes the hair back behind his ear and subsequently wind up accidentally falling on his face again. He’s smiling obnoxiously gorgeously. Minghao tries to say something again, but his face is abominably hot and the words still don’t come.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Jeonghan says a little bit smugly after it’s become rather apparent that Minghao’s mouth isn’t cooperating with him, “but just know that I am fully intent on winning you over. And with that said,” he spares a glance at a passing server, “I’m going to the bathroom. If you see our waitress, tell her it’s my birthday so we can get some free ice cream.”

Where most people would cringe and ache for the sweet release of death over a group of restaurant employees singing happy birthday to them in the most attention-grabbing manner possible, Jeonghan seems to revel in it, eyes lighting up while they draw out the last note for obscenely long. He dives into the sundae with gusto despite having probably eaten enough for three people since the beginning of the afternoon, but he makes sure to coerce Minghao into eating a fair share as well. By the time they leave, Minghao’s not sure how Jeonghan is even walking.

“I think I ate too much,” he groans as he slips into his seat. Minghao snorts. “Hey, what’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Minghao mutters, then eventually, “I just _know_ you ate too much.” Jeonghan shrugs as he turns the key in the ignition, car humming to life below them.

“If I can’t indulge on my own birthday, when can I?” The sun is dipping behind the skyline when they pull back onto the street, reddish light dusting everything before them. “Okay, what’s your address?”

“Uh, you can just drop me off at the rec center and I can walk from there.” Jeonghan throws his head back to emphasize the groan escaping his lips.

“I’m not dropping you off at the rec center,” he moans. “I just took you on a date and we are in a car. You’re not walking home from the rec center. Just tell me your address.”

“But—”

“ _Please_.” The exasperation in his tone leads Minghao to begrudgingly divulge his residence, and soon enough, they’re heading down streets he’s pretty sure he knows.

The sun has already set when they slide up in front of Minghao’s house, car idling next to the curb in front of the mailbox. All of the lights inside are on and the cars are in the driveway like they ought to be, but for some reason, Minghao doesn’t unbuckle himself and abandon ship just yet. He feels like there’s something more that needs to be said, but he’s having a hard time determining what it is exactly. Jeonghan breaks the silence before he figures it out.

“Thanks for spending my birthday with me,” he says warmly. Minghao turns eyes filled with curiosity from the view through the windshield to the boy in the driver’s seat.

“Aren’t there other people you’d rather spend your birthday with?” he asks. His heart starts hammering in his ribcage without warning him of its intent to do so or providing a reason.

“Maybe sometimes,” Jeonghan allows, “but not today.” His face is placid and perfectly content as he gazes back at Minghao in the steadily darkening car, and Minghao is itching to know where all the damn butterflies in his stomach came from and why they’ve chosen this moment to come out of hiding.

“Thanks for bringing me,” he manages to stammer somehow.

“Minghao.” The sound of his voice rings through the air with unreasonable sureness, seems to reverberate off every surface in the vehicle before it hits Minghao’s ears. “I want to kiss you.” Minghao chokes on air.

“You do?” Third degree burns are probably cooler than his face is currently.

“Badly,” Jeonghan confesses. “But I won’t do it if you tell me not to.” He unbuckles his seatbelt and holds up both hands, wiggling all ten outstretched fingers as he scoots a fraction closer on the seat. “I’ll count down from ten, okay? If you don’t tell me not to kiss you, I’m going to do it.” He ticks three fingers down slowly before pausing to say, “Wait, let me be clear. I’m not going to get angry if you say no. Like, not at all. I promise.” His lips curve gently. “I should have mentioned that earlier, so I’ll restart the countdown.”

Either time is just passing more slowly than it should be, or Jeonghan is counting down according to a scale vastly skewed from its actual progression. It feels like years have passed before he’s bent down all the fingers on just one hand, and the sheer agony of the wait alone is making Minghao want to say no just to get it over with. He doesn’t, though, because it would be a lie to say it, and his mother has always raised him to be an honest boy.

“Okay,” Jeonghan says eons later as he folds his final finger down to join the rest, “you didn’t say not to, so I’m going to kiss you now.” He leans forward at fragments of inches per hour, and Minghao wonders how many millennia have passed since they stopped the car. His hand is hot when he rests it on Minghao’s shoulder. “You have until I get over there to tell me to stop.”

“You sure are giving me a lot of time,” Minghao points out despite the overzealous tap dance occurring just beside his lungs. Jeonghan chuckles quietly.

“I’m trying to be considerate.” His breath tickles Minghao’s cheeks. “You’re running out of time, by the way.”

“I know,” Minghao mutters softly as he watches Jeonghan come closer and closer. His eyes are shining brightly even in the dark. The grip on Minghao’s shoulder tightens.

“Well,” Jeonghan says when their noses bump into each other lightly, “this is your last chance.”

“Stop giving me chances,” he breathes, and Jeonghan hums, low and soft.

“Don’t say that,” he mumbles. “It’s tempting.” Without another word from either side, he closes the final inch remaining between their lips.

Jeonghan’s are softer than expected, and they taste like the caramel sauce that was on the ice cream sundae. Fingertips glide over Minghao’s neck, pressing down gently as the seconds tick by. He doesn’t have any idea how fast time is passing or if it’s even passing at all.

Minghao hadn’t pictured his first kiss like this: in a car parked outside a home he’s hardly lived in with a boy he’s barely known for two months. Granted, he’s sure nobody pictures it like that even they even picture it at all; even so, he’s okay with it. He’s okay with the backpack leaning awkwardly up against his leg, and he’s okay with the slight discomfort of leaning over the console sitting between them. He’s very okay with the way Jeonghan’s hand slides a little bit down his neck while they kiss, thumb ghosting a line down toward his collarbone. Jeonghan grins when he pulls away, resituating his hand on Minghao’s shoulder.

“Thank you for that,” he says, voice brimming with hushed delight. “I’ll consider it my birthday present.”

“I mean,” Minghao begins, “you’re welcome, I guess.” Jeonghan laughs heartily, giving his shoulder a small squeeze before letting go.

“You should probably go inside,” he says, reclining back into his seat and buckling the seatbelt. “I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

“See you.”

When Minghao walks in the door, the first question his mother asks him is if he had fun with his friend. The second question she asks is if he wants dinner, and the third question she asks is why he looks so red. The answers he gives are “yes,” “no,” and “the heat in the car was on,” in that order, and by the time she gets around to asking question number four, he’s already fled to his bedroom.

Two faces display that they are very aware of where he had been the previous day when he gets to Soonyoung’s car the next afternoon, and two more display the exact same thing once they arrive at dance practice. Together, all four are stressing him out beyond belief, and he wishes he had feigned a stomachache to escape whatever hell this is that he’s brought himself into.

“Wow,” Jihoon whistles once they’ve milked the entire story out of him. “He moves faster than I thought. I never would have taken you for the lovesick fool.”

“I’m not a fool,” Minghao hisses, but Soonyoung pats his shoulder sympathetically.

“It’s okay,” he assures him. “It happens to the best of us. We’ll be here for you in two weeks when things start to turn out the way we said they would.”

“I don’t appreciate how you think I can’t take care of myself.”

“It’s not that we think you can’t take care of yourself,” Jun explains, “it’s just that we think Jeonghan can’t take care of you.”

“We could be wrong,” Soonyoung admits. “We just probably aren’t.”

“Somehow that does not feel any less condescending.” Chan sits mute while the other three shrug, and Minghao sighs.

It’s not that he wants to think they’re right, but it’s also hard to pretend like he doesn’t believe them at all. Sometimes when he sees Jeonghan walk into the classroom, that bounce in his step and that twinkle in his eyes, Minghao is sure they were wrong. Sometimes when he looks him in the eyes, when he smiles that carefree smile like nothing in the world is happening, Minghao is sure they were right. Sometimes when he thinks about how Jeonghan hasn’t asked him to hang out again, he wishes he had heeded their advice.

“Why don’t you just go to sleep?” Minghao says unenthusiastically a few weeks later, the very next Thursday they’re back in the gym. Jeonghan raises his eyebrows in quiet astonishment.

“And abandon you to do the laps alone? As if.”

“I’ll be fine doing the laps alone. I’m a big kid.”

“This is not the tune you were singing just a few weeks ago,” he counters.

“Yeah, well, tunes change.” Something ugly is boiling in his gut when he says, “You would know.” Jeonghan’s back stiffens, easy smile slipping from his face.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I think you know what it’s supposed to mean,” he spits, and he doesn’t know why he feels so bitter all of a sudden.

“Minghao—”

“Did you mean anything you said?” he spits in a harsh whisper. The words are coming out undammed now, and he wants to stop them, but he feels like he just can’t, like his mouth will keep laying them out even if his brain forgets what it’s saying. “You were never taking any of it seriously from the beginning, were you?” Jeonghan opens his mouth to speak, but Minghao doesn’t let him. “Whatever. I’ll walk my laps alone.”

Jeonghan doesn’t bug Minghao at all the entire period like he was expecting him to, and Minghao is pretty sure he’s miffed about it even though he knows he shouldn’t be. It pisses him off that all the other guys were right and he ignored them anyway, and it also pisses him off that he still glances Jeonghan’s direction an obscene amount of times throughout the duration of the period. It pisses him off the most that he was so willing to let himself fall damn near in love in only three months because a boy was pretty and seemed interested, and it’s not the first time that he hates his parents for making them move.

A scowl is very deeply etched on his features when he feels a tap on his shoulder in the locker room at the very end of the period. Surprise is the absolute last emotion he feels when he turns to find that the tap was perpetrated by none other than Jeonghan, whose face is distinctly devoid of its customary grin. Minghao stares back in silence for a lifetime before Jeonghan gives the reason for his disturbance.

“Will you help me look for my keys?” He sounds uncharacteristically pathetic, and Minghao fights the tugging being done to his heartstrings.

“No,” he responds simply.

“Please, Minghao,” he begs, almost reaching out to grab him by the arm but deciding against it at the last second, “I seriously can’t find them. I really need your help.”

“Why should I?”

“Because you’re a good person?” Jeonghan offers. Minghao draws his sigh out as long as possible.

“Fine.” There’s a hint of a smile behind Jeonghan’s eyes, but he doesn’t let it spread to the bottom half of his face.

The rest of the boys in class slowly filter out as they search until they’re the only ones remaining, and Minghao is very swiftly becoming convinced that Jeonghan’s keys have either been banished to another realm or vanished into thin air. They look in every single locker, on the floor, under the benches, in the shower stalls, and nothing even vaguely key-shaped is to be found, let alone an actual set of keys used to unlock and operate a real car. Minghao takes one glance at the clock and notes with horror that the bell has long rung, evidently not loudly enough for them to hear it in the recesses of the locker room, and he figures even a full-on sprint will not get him to the bus in time for its departure.

“Look,” he says, turning around dejectedly, “I don’t think we’re going to find your—”

He’s cut off immediately when he spies Jeonghan just standing there without a care in the world, keys dangling from his hand as he leans against one of the lockers. Rage and confusion bubble up inside him in equal parts.

“You had your goddamn keys the whole time?” he sputters.

“Yeah,” Jeonghan says airily. “I took an acting class once.”

“I missed my fucking bus—”

“I’ll take you home.” He takes a large step forward, backing Minghao up against the locker he was standing in front of and leaning in too close. “We need to sort some things out, though.” He plants a hand firmly on Minghao’s shoulder, and his voice is very pleasant when he speaks, starkly contrasting with the deep-set seriousness in his face. “You’re angry because you think I’m not taking you seriously, yes?”

“Yeah,” Minghao mumbles.

“And how am I not?”

“You just,” he starts, releasing a gust of air. “I don’t know, I mean… We… You haven’t even asked me to hang out with you since your birthday.” Jeonghan hums and leans closer, closer, until Minghao has nowhere to look into but his eyes.

“You know, Minghao,” he begins, lips curving upward for the first time, “I think it’s you who’s not taking me seriously.” Minghao’s anger fades quickly into pure confusion. Maybe it’s a side effect of that smile. “Am I wrong for wanting you to be sure you even want to be around me after I tricked you into a date and made you kiss me?”

“What?” He feels a bit of a lurch in his heart. “You didn’t trick me... You didn’t make me…”

“If you want to spend time together, all you have to do is say it. I won’t say no.” He leans back a little bit and levels his gaze. It’s unfair that someone is allowed to look that good in a damn locker room. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m making you.”

“Is this the same guy who pestered me every single day for three weeks to come hang out with him?” Jeonghan huffs.

“Shut up,” he says, voice dripping faux annoyance. “I realized I probably ought to be a little more considerate and less pushy. It’s called character development.” Minghao snorts, and Jeonghan just keeps smiling. “You should know I’m very serious about you,” he says, and Minghao’s limbs freeze.

“How… how serious?” He gulps, and he’s not sure why his chest is feeling so tight. Nerves? Fear? He wants it gone.

“Serious enough to kiss you right now against these lockers.”

“There’s nothing romantic about a locker room,” Minghao informs him, face splitting into a grin.

“Exactly. That’s what makes it so serious.” He leans forward until the tips of their noses are just barely making contact, eyes twinkling. “I’m only giving you one chance to tell me not to this time, so you better speak up now.”

“I’m not saying no.”

Minghao hadn’t pictured his second kiss like this: in a gym locker room at a school he’s hardly attended with a boy he’s been on one date with and his back pressed uncomfortably against a cold metal door. Granted, he’s sure nobody even pictures their second kiss at all; even so, he’s okay with it. He’s okay with the vents pushing lines in between his shoulder blades and the dust hanging in the air around him and the faint smell of teen boy that the whole room is contaminated with. He’s okay with his friends being wrong about the whole thing. He’s okay with letting himself fall in love like an idiot as long as Jeonghan is an idiot, too.

They’re both fools, and he couldn’t be any more okay with it.

**Author's Note:**

> WOOHOO at long last i am contributing to the jeonghao tag..... this poor, malnourished tag... it's so god damn hungry..... WHY.....  
> ANYWAY i really hope you enjoyed reading this and i hope you will consider giving this adorable ship a little more love! i spent a lot more time writing it than i thought i would, but oh well. c'est la vie (or at least my vie). AS ALWAYS feedback is so greatly appreciated and thank you again for reading from the bottom of my heart!


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